SKYEYES

by Edward Es

  Kirshner returns to the path screen. The projected path now figure-eights around the Moon, back to Earth, but in an exaggerated swing, elongated past the Moon. The path is green to where it curves halfway around the Moon, then red the rest of the way back. He props his elbows on the desk and lays his face in his hands. “I’ll get to work on this.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  “No. Nothing. Let me take care of it.”

  “How’s it going down there, anyway?”

  Kirshner contemplates. “Nobody’s in jail, yet. But I have to say, there are a few people very unhappy with you about now. And I don’t mean the authorities. I suggest you reach out and touch someone. And let’s do the rest of this together.”

  “Understood.”

  The Doctor clicks off-line, thinks, then dials a phone number.

  A woman’s voice answers. “Cardona residence.”

  “Cindy? It’s Werner Kirshner. I’m sorry to call so late. Is Louis in?”

  The five hikers stand silhouetted on Watchman Plateau’s rim against the lights of Springdale and the faint canyon in the distance.

  Aboard Air Force One, Stamp reviews papers in the airborne Oval Office when there’s a knock at the door. An aide walks in and hands him a slip of paper, then walks out. After reading it, he takes off his glasses and shakes his head, leaning back in his chair.

  Tom unstraps himself, swings the chair around, and looks out the window. The Earth already appears to be smaller, if only due to the angle of the capsule away from it. He puts Zion’s face up to the window to look out.

  From outside, Zion’s face gazes toward Earth. He paws at the glass and meows in silence.

  Inside room 211, Noelle sleeps restlessly, snapping up at the bleating of the phone. She answers in a stupor, listens, then reaches for the remote and turns on CNN.

  A news anchor announces, “This report now from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Our correspondent, Rob Fanghella has the story. Rob?” The shot switches to a Saturn 5 booster laying on its side like a fallen giant, illuminated by rows of floodlights. This serves as the backdrop for Fanghella, the CNN correspondent.

  “Yes, Roger, at 1202 this morning we were advised by Dr. Cole, the designated NASA coordinator assigned to the Holmes case here at the Space Center, that the capsule carrying Holmes has initiated a transition from Earth orbit toward the Moon. Here’s an excerpt from the impromptu news conference we managed to catch.”

  Dr. Cole appears on the screen, visibly uneasy, flanked by colleagues. “About one hour ago, our tracking system monitoring the status of the Holmes vehicle detected a change in flight path consistent with a translunar trajectory. This was confirmed by Dr. Kirshner, the operative manager of the Holmes expedition. NASA has no official comment since this is not a mission in any way connected with NASA. There is nothing we can do for Mr. Holmes at this point, although the President has requested we lend our assistance in providing data and path calculations which might be of use to Dr. Kirshner. For now, that’s all the information I have.”

  A reporter’s distant voice asks off-camera, “Do you have any opinion at this point about the future of Mr. Holmes’ flight?”

  “I can only say that his team has shown extraordinary resourcefulness in what they accomplished to this point. As I was led to understand from Dr. Kirshner, they had, or have, at least theoretically, the capability for reentry and recovery. However, I have to say that the complexities of attempting a lunar mission on such limited resources is troublesome, to put it mildly. I don’t have enough information about the depth of their mission architecture to comment any further on their chances of success. I will only say that they’ll need all the help they can get.” Dr. Cole walks away, a flurry of questions striking his back. Fanghella stares at his monitor until he realizes he’s looking at himself, then turns toward the camera.

  Cole hurries down a hallway, his assistant trying to keep up. “Doctor, what about the numbers? Something’s not right. I thought we talked about that.”

  Cole stops and turns toward her. “I spoke to Kirshner and he said it’s nothing they can’t adjust during a TLC burn. It’s not our position to create any hysteria or speculation. He asked that we say nothing, so we won’t. Is that clear?”

  “Yes sir.” Cole walks away. “Yes sir,” she repeats, no more comfortable with the implication than he.

  Noelle stares at Fanghella’s face on the screen. “Come on, Robby, you can do it. Open your mouth. Speak.”

  Fanghella recovers. “All of us covering this story are having a hard time keeping up with events as they... weave in and out... through the night.”

  “’Weave in and out?’” Noelle says, squinting one eye.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is, we’re all caught up in this... adventure. This idea that a regular person, an individual, can chase such a dream. A dream that many of us have had, I know I have, wondering what it would be like to feel the power of a rocket underneath, to feel the dangerous vacuum of space a few inches away, to look down at Earth from a distance.” He pauses. “And we’ve all hoped Tom Holmes would come back safely. Now, things have changed. Now he’s headed toward the Moon. It sounds both exhilarating and fearful, two emotions I’m sure Mr. Holmes shares with us. Rob Fanghella for CNN.”

  “Nice save.” Noelle returns to the phone. “Oh boy. Well, I’m going to get some sleep. This is going to be a long one. Good night.” She hangs up the phone, turns off the TV and lays down, eyes wide open.

  In front of the ship’s bridge is a narrow balcony just outside the expansive glass windows. Isabel stands alone, facing the bow, the wind blowing through her hair. Mr. Greer enters the bridge and exchanges words with Captain Wright, handing him a message. The Captain takes the paper and walks out onto the balcony. He approaches Isabel, hands her the paper, says something, and walks away. She stares at the paper, then crumples it in her hand and turns back into the wind, this time leaning into it with her eyes tightly shut, and her heart breaking.

  The Moon sets in Zion Canyon over the Court of the Patriarchs, only a wobbling sliver remaining. It slips away, darkening the night.

  Constellations rotate in a dizzying, streaking disc around the North Star.

  The El Rio Lodge is one of Springdale’s older motels, set slightly off and parallel to the highway, closer to the center of town than the Driftwood. Flanked by souvenir shops, it retains the 50’s flavor when round, heavy cars of bright colors and hood ornaments parked in front of the sliding glass doors of the street level rooms. The gray FBI vehicle looks out of place in front of room number 3.

  Bud tosses in bed, jostled into the day by the pounding on his glass door, and lifts himself under the weight of a hangover. The pounding persists, increasing in deliberation. “All right! All right! Hold your freakin’ horses.”

  He rises out of bed, stumbling side to side like a newborn bull, gropes for the door and slides it open it a crack. Through the crack comes a piercing slash of sunlight across his face and grimace turns to wince. Even less welcome is Sid’s all too eager nose poking through. “What the hell time is it?” Bud rasps.

  Sid pushes a cup of coffee through the door. “It’s time to start the first day of the rest of your life. Now get your flabby butt out here and let’s take a hike.”

  Bud is taken back by this stranger in Sid’s voice. He peers out. “I feel like I’m on the last day of my first life. How did I let you talk me into that last night? My hair hurts.”

  “Listen, Buddy Boy, last night was the first time I’ve ever seen you... not act like yourself. And that’s a real big improvement. See you in the coffee shop.” He starts to leave, then stops. “Oh, by the way. Holmes shot himself to the Moon last night.”

  Sid walks away. It takes a moment to sink in, then Bud calls out through the door. “What?”

  Sid sits in a booth at the Bumbleberry Coffee Shop reading a pape
r, headline facing away: HOLMES MOON BOUND. Bud, covered in a wrinkled suit, shuffles up, each footstep turning up volume on the throbbing. He sees the headline as he sets his suitcase down. Sid lowers the paper. “Good morning, Sunshine.”

  Sid, dressed in jeans and a denim shirt, is not looking like he’s about to head out of town. “What the heck are you doing? We’ve got a plane to catch in Vegas in four hours,” Bud whines.

  Sid turns a page. “I’m not going.”

  “Not going?”

  “That’s right. Is it the ‘not’ or the ‘going’ that’s throwing you?”

  Bud is yet more disturbed. Sid is not himself. But then again, neither is Bud. “Time out here. We’re supposed to be back in Washington today.”

  Sid says, from behind the paper, “Wrong. You’re supposed to be back in Washington today. I called in and took... well, I took some time off. I’m staying here for a while.”

  “A while?”

  “Yes. Is it the ‘A’ or the—”

  “OK, OK. Put a sock in it. I get your point. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I’m getting as far away from this place as I can.”

  “Sit down, have some coffee,” Sid says without looking at him.

  “Not a chance. I’m out of here.” There’s an interval between them neither is used to. “Yeah, well, I’ll see you in... ‘a while’.“

  Sid salutes him goodbye as Bud stands puzzled, looks askance, and walks away, turning back for another look as he opens the glass door. Sid continues with his paper.

  The “Welcome to Springdale” monument, made of blocks of local sandstone, stands quietly until Bud’s car roars by.

  Bud looks in his rearview mirror and sees the monument shrinking in the distance.

  The Driftwood serves continental breakfast from a small self-serve kitchenette, attached to the sundry shop on one side and lobby on the other. The lobby gift shop opens into a lounge furnished with tables and sofas. Views of the hotel buildings, nearby pasture, and canyon are framed through three walls of picture windows. News teams have taken over all of it, and ABN has commandeered the majority of the sitting area as an operations base. Reporters and techs crowd in and out of the kitchenette, bumping into each other, getting their claim on coffee, rolls, juice, and cereal. From the lounge, a determined voice turns heads like a bugle call.

  “Come on, gang, let’s settle down here! We’ve got a lot to do.” Jeff Nauman is the site manager for ABN and motions his people into the room as they gather and the chatter dwindles to whispers. Noelle stands with Scott at the back, sipping coffee. Scott stuffs a whole sweet roll in his mouth, earning a disapproving nose wrinkle from her.

  “As all of you know, or at least you better know by now, our space traveler has left the ‘surly bonds of Earth’ and is on his way toward the Moon. I don’t have to tell you this is the story of the decade, or the century, or millennium, or whatever else you want to call it, and we need to be on top of it. Right now we’ve got two correspondent teams and about ten leads to cover. Most important, I need a crew out at the bakery to try to get a one-on-one with Kirshner. We need some real info on whether this guy has a chance in hell of ever making it back. Any volunteers? Noelle, you want to take this one?”

  “Actually, Jeff, I was going to take a chance at another interview with the girl, Melody. At the Noah House.”

  Nauman frowns. “I thought that was already covered. Didn’t you already do her? We need input here. Information.”

  “I realize that, but there’s more to this story than rockets and orbits. I think the heart of it is in the why, not the how. There’s something about her that... I don’t know. I just know I have to talk to her again.” She looks around the room. “Maybe Warren can do the factory.”

  “I see. I’ll buy that.” He doesn’t look like he buys it. “Warren, are you up for the bakery spot?” Warren tugs the brim of his golf cap, deferring to Crane, the senior correspondent. “This better be good, Noelle. Let’s not get accused of going for the soft spot. Might take the edge off.”

  Noelle stares at him, then walks away, dragging Scott by the arm. Nauman cringes at his own remark.

  She storms out of the Driftwood lobby, flailing the glass door ahead of her, and nearly knocks Sid over. Noelle stops, then recognizes him. He looks different though. Perhaps the clothes. “Oh. Agent... Knowles. Wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right. Miss... Crane. Wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. Are you all right?”

  He waits for her to pass, holding the door open, and starts to enter, staring. “I’m just fine. Real fine, thanks,” Sid says as their eyes meet before the door closes. Noelle doesn’t like that she liked him. Scott notices, makes a face, and she belts him on the arm, then continues the storming.

  Bud stands in a crowded boarding line in the D concourse at Las Vegas’s McCarren Airport, out of sorts and annoyed by the slow movement.

  Finally aboard National Airlines Flight 711, Bud finds his row and stuffs his bag into the overhead. He crashes into his window seat after struggling by the elderly lady sitting at the aisle. Settling in, he looks up at the TV monitor, finding, to his dismay, the feed from the capsule, the Earth now a complete sphere. The caption reads: “From space I saw Earth—indescribably beautiful with the scars of national boundaries gone... Ahmad Faris.”

  Flight 711 accelerates down the runway and rotates for takeoff. Bud grabs the armrest.

  At 37,000, feet Bud stares blankly out the window.

  “Good morning folks, this is your Captain speaking. Welcome aboard National 711, nonstop service from Las Vegas to Baltimore. Flying time today is three hours and fifty-six minutes at an altitude of thirty-seven thousand feet. Weather out there is snow showers, temperature twenty-four degrees Fahrenheit. I’d like to point out on the left side of the aircraft, almost straight down, probably the most famous place on Earth these days. That’s Zion National Park, one of the most beautiful spots on Earth, but you may know it better as the launch site for the first civilian manned mission into space.”

  Bud looks down at it, then, irritated, pulls the window shade closed. The lady reaches over and shoves it back up, craning to look out. He scowls at her and rests his head back, closing his eyes. After a few moments, he reopens them and looks back outside and down.

  Not the typical cruise ship cabin, Isabel’s three room suite perches on the top passenger deck, directly over the bridge. She’s just taken a shower and, bundled in a white terry robe, stands on her balcony, impatiently brushing out a knot at the end of her hair. She stops, unsure why, to look out at the stark ocean horizon when her phone rings, and walks back into the cabin, answering on the third ring.

  “Hello?”

  There’s an unsteady silence, punctuated by hissing static. Tom’s voice wavers through eighty thousand miles of space.

  “Isabel?”

  She drops the brush to the ground. Her eyes fill, but she fights it off, her hand covering her mouth as she catches her breath. “Oh, God. Tommy?”

  “How are you?”

  “But, you sound so close.”

  “About a third of the way.”

  She walks back outside with the phone, looking at the morning Moon, disbelieveing that she’s speaking to an invisible speck racing toward it. “Are you OK?”

  “I’m doing great, actually. Pretty much right on course.”

  “How is it that you know exactly where you are, and I have no idea where I am? You and your ‘Mystery Cruise’. What’s this all about, anyway?”

  Tom has Zion on his back in midair, lightly scratching his belly so as not to launch him. “You wouldn’t want me to ruin the surprise, would you?”

  “Nothing would surprise me anymore, Tommy. I’m worried sick about you. Are you going to make it back? Or did you ever want to?”

  “If I’d intended to kill myself, I could have done it
a little cheaper, you know.”

  “Remember the definition of ‘intention’ from law school? I believe it was ‘a desire, or substantial certainty.’” As soon as she says it, she wishes she hadn’t, shaking her fist at herself.

  “Isabel, I didn’t want to—”

  “No, no. I’m sorry. I just don’t know... I don’t know how to handle this. I’m scared. Really scared. And I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  “You know, when you were here, I was upset I had so little of you. And now, I’d give anything to have whatever it was I had of you... here. Not flying away from me at 17,000 miles an hour. I feel you slipping away.” She starts to cry.

  “24,563, actually. I picked up a little speed.”

  Isabel wipes her face with her sleeve. “Damnit, Tommy! Stop it!”

  “I’m sorry. I just wish you’d quit writing me off. Give us some credit. I do plan to make it back. I swear.”

  “Really? And when you come back, who will you be?”

  Tom looks out the window. “I don’t know, Isabel. Sometimes we have to lose ourselves, just to find ourselves.”

  Isabel laughs through her tears. “Jesus, Tommy. Couldn’t you just walk around the block a few times, like the rest of us?”

  “This is just a bigger block, honey. A longer walk, that’s all.”

  She dabs her eyes with a tissue pulled from her bathrobe pocket. “Right. Next time I tell you to go take a hike, I’ll think twice.”

  “Listen, I’ve got to keep the phone bill down. These long distance calls are killin’ me.” Now it’s his turn to wish he hadn’t said that. She closes her eyes.

  “Goodbye, Tommy. I love you.”

  “Take care of yourself, Isabel.”

  A cruel blast of white noise drives the phone from her ear. She slams it down and starts to cry again as she stomps her bad foot and falls backward onto the couch.